Analysis of The Arrow and the Song

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807 (Portland) – 1882 (Cambridge)



I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.


Scheme aAbb aAcc xcdd
Poetic Form Quatrain 
Metre 111100101 11111111 11101101 11101011 11010101 11111111 11111101 111100111 11100011 1101011 001101011 1101001101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 422
Words 90
Sentences 4
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 12
Letters per line (avg) 27
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 106
Words per stanza (avg) 29
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on May 03, 2023

27 sec read
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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline. more…

All Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poems | Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Books

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    What is the term for the continuation of a sentence without a pause beyond the end of a line, couplet, or stanza.
    A Enjambment
    B Line break
    C Dithyramb
    D A turn